Proceedings of the 5th Global Conference on Education and Teaching
Year: 2023
DOI:
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Higher Education Wakeup Call: Digital Education for Sustainability in South African Disadvantaged Universities
Marongwe Newlin, Chisango Grasia
ABSTRACT:
The COVID-19 pandemic served as a wakeup call to most sectors including higher education to embrace technology for sustainability in teaching and learning. Technology usage has transformed institutions of higher education’s operations. Higher education should embrace change and bring transformative pedagogies, content, methods, and technologies that are responsive and relevant to the global needs for sustainable development. Digital education is a catalyst in achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Using conceptual analysis, the paper explores strategies that can be used to enhance digital education for sustainability in South African disadvantaged universities that emerged from opportunities and challenges created by COVID-19 pandemic. The paper focuses on identification of digital education resources, enhancement of the use of digital education, strategies to maintain the use of digital education and prospects for strategies in digital education. Practical implications for usage of digital education in disadvantaged universities in South Africa including opportunities and threats that have implications on digital education policies are offered. The paper draws that some threats were turned into opportunities through the strategies that were used by disadvantaged universities that served as a wakeup call for them to embrace technologies. The paper concludes that despite threats faced by disadvantaged South African universities, their vision and mission statements on digitalizing education are aligned to the UN’s 17 SDGs, Agenda 2063 for the Africa that we want, the National Development Plan 2030 by South Africa and the 4th and 5th Industrial Revolution that advocate for complex problem-solving skills.
keywords: lifelong learning, higher education, sustainable development goals, technology, transformation